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(54) SLUG Easy-Peel Clementines Filed by Oom. Not long ago Aunt Leona, Boo, and I were traveling along State Street which used to be a big cruising street on weekends for bored teens. It was a Friday night and there were a few teen-filled vehicles making the rounds. We were stopped at a light when a loud, constantly revving, primer-gray Camaro pulled up alongside us. Inside were a male driver and, as Boo put it, two blatantly female puffballs. The driver had mangy long hair and sported an animal claw earring dangling from his left ear. Both girls wore seriously shredded rock concert T-shirts with their boobs unnaturally large and protruding. Their faces were covered in so much makeup that it must have been purchased in large vats from some home hardware store. Both seemed somewhat diminished under their huge puffballs of hair. One of the girl’s heads was showing off the many variations a person can achieve with peroxide—from orange through canary yellow to almost white. The other girl’s hair was just various shades of dirt. Their car stereo was pumping out loud drums, screeching guitars, and vocal phrases like “Class dismissed. I have the hots for the teacher.” I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Then all three of them looked over at us and burst out laughing followed by a complex chorus of insults from which I could pick out “preppy faggot,” “ugly lez-bean girl,” and “stuck in the 80s.” The light changed and they peeled off loudly. Aunt Leona looked at us calmly and rolled her eyes. “F-People,” she said. “F-Dudes and F-Chicks—ya know, from my day. In other places, they’re known as butt-rockers and you don’t see many of them around anymore. ‘Stuck in the 80s, indeed. They’re an endangered species and probably best, ya know, extinct.” We were driving casually, but as luck would have it, the offending Camaro was stopped at the next light. We were again beside them. This seemed to please the F-People very much as they immediately began their sing-song assault again. The light changed and they peeled off, turning into the parking lot of a convenience store and squealing around the back of it to park. “Right,” said Leona. “How convenient.” She put her blinker on and calmly pulled into the parking lot. She stopped at the front of the store and said, “You two get out here. I’ll be right back.” Boo exclaimed, “Aunt Leona, No!” To which Leona replied, “No need to worry, sweetheart. I know how to deal with these people. I’ve been doing it for years.” Boo and I reluctantly got out of the car and stood on the curb watching as Leona’s white Chrysler LeBaron convertible gracefully glided off around the corner. From where we stood, we could hear an initial outburst of surprise and glee and that familiar caterwaul of insults followed by an outburst of surprise and horror and screams—both male and female. Then silence … Boo and I glanced anxiously at each other. Then, almost silently, the LeBaron pulled up beside us and there was Aunt Leona, smiling and looking totally undisturbed. “OK, get in, you two,” she said. Boo walked towards the car and suddenly jumped back with several four-letter exclamations. “Aunt Leona, what’s that on the seat?!” I glanced at the seat and saw fur—a large pile of it. I looked closer. Some of the fur was displaying the many variations a person can achieve with peroxide. In almost jinx-worthy unison, Boo and I exclaimed, “You scalped them!” Leona just chuckled and said, “Not scalped, well, not exactly.” She lifted her hands, wriggled her long red press-on nails, smiled and flapped her eyebrows. “These things aren’t just for beauty,” she said. She then reached down and picked up the peroxide pelt, holding it up daintily on either side with her red claws. This time both Boo and I screamed. Hanging down from the hair where the face would be was … A FACE!!! It was the dead-looking zombie version of that F-Chick’s face staring back at us. Distorted red lips, spider eyelashes sprouting from blue eye shadow, heavy blush on unnaturally tanned skin. “You killed them,” Boo gasped, almost in tears. “No, no” said Leona, “they aren’t dead! Just bald and bare and, ya know, speechless for now.” Again, she wriggled her press-ons. “From years of experience with the F-People, I discovered just the right spot under the chin to make an incision with my nail. Ya know, with all that make-up and several layers of hairspray creating an extra skin, all I hafta do is slice and pull and … PRESTO! Just like, ya know, an easy-peel Clementine. It all pulls off, bringing the hair with it.” Boo and I got into the back seat, keeping our eyes glued to the pelts as if they might pounce at us or try and crawl up on our laps. Leona just laughed all the way home.
Photo By: Francis Smith Kissa means “cat” in Finnish, but this lady is definitely not “catty.” If anything, she is one of the most nurturing and caring ladies in our dance community. A woman in love with dancing all her life, let me introduce you to Kissa. Kissa was born in Colorado and grew up in Salt Lake City. She began dancing at age four, studying ballet, tap, and jazz, and became a Modern Dance major at the University of Utah. She fell in love with belly dancing after taking a workshop with Blaisia from New York when she was 14, but it was much later before she began her lessons seriously. Kissa has seven children ranging in ages from one to 25, and also has three grandchildren. “After raising children for years,” she laughingly told me, “I woke up one morning and told all of my coworkers (because she also holds down a full-time job) that we were all going to take belly dancing lessons. I looked in the phone book, found Thia, called her and said, ‘When is class?’ The rest is history. I have been there ever since.” Kissa is a wonder and a joy. She seems to possess boundless energy and enthusiasm for herself and other dancers. She not only dances with Troupe Topaz, but for the past two years, she has been teaching at Thia’s Egyptian Dance Center. She teaches two adult beginning classes, and three children’s classes. “I love to teach,” explained Kissa. “Teaching gives me so much positive energy, and I just give it back to my students. Everything comes back to teaching.” When it comes to her own dancing, Kissa is a “cabaret girl.” She likes the glitz and glitter, but it is the dancing she loves. Her favorite dancers, Eva Fleming, Virginia, and Thia, all excel in Egyptian Cabaret. As she told me, “Virginia is so graceful and positive. I love her energy. Eva Fleming is just amazing. She has such fabulous technique and muscle control. And, well, I just love Thia as a teacher, mentor, performer, and friend. She has given me so many opportunities. I feel very fortunate.” When I asked her how she felt about belly dancing in Utah, she said, “Middle Eastern dance in Utah is so much bigger than I ever anticipated. Being a belly dancer has opened my eyes to what is available and what is really going on. There is so much diversity and such a large community. I know that this didn’t exist several years ago. I think our dance community is one of the best in the nation.” Kissa will be dancing at Spring Fest 2008, March 1, and at upcoming Meetings of the Tribes. For more information on Spring Fest, go to http://www.bellydancingbythia.com/springfest.htm. * Quote from “Burials” by Patricia Monaghan Kissa “Not just a woman in her prime but a mother of the tribe … not a woman but a vessel for the energy of the Goddess.” * (55) SLUG
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Page 11 and 12: RICo BLACK Tito Valdez - Vocals Ty
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Page 25 and 26: and 5 taps, and all sorts of other
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